How I Graduated College FREE of Debt

Hi Readers! Did you know that I graduated with my bachelors degree in 2013 completely debt FREE?! Yep, I’m a little proud of it;-)

All bragging aside, I did graduate with a BFA in 2013 from Colorado Mesa University. I majored in graphic design. I managed to complete my degree without a penny of debt. And before you ask, no I did not have a full ride scholarship. I built for myself a very specific system that allowed me to not only graduate debt free, but to obtain my bachelors in 3 years instead of 4. Getting my degree in 3 years allowed me to graduate at the ripe ole age of 20!

I also want to point out that I did not have my parents supporting me financially during my college career. I paid for each semester myself. Looking back it was a lot of work! I worked my tail off for 3 years, but the financial freedom that being a debt free graduate allowed me has been amazing!

Did you know that once you graduate college you have to start paying back you loans almost immediately? I was so excited to graduate, but I didn’t have a ton of amazing job offers at the time. I can NOT imagine having to graduate, then start paying off loans right away. I would have been so panicked. Instead, I was able to enjoy my first few month post graduation, trying out jobs that weren’t too serious. I bartended, worked in property management and honestly played until getting my first out of college design job as a senior designer for a magazine.

I am a firm believer that asking young adults to mortgage their future with loans to pay for an education is NOT FAIR! With little experience in your desired career field and most companies looking for employees that are past entry level, it’s a daunting task to find a job that pays enough to cover living expenses AND student loans. Add in the cost of health insurance and a new college graduate could quickly be looking for ways to enroll back into the safe college world that they just left. This is not a fair way to start! And I want to change that.

I want to change it so badly that I literally wrote the book on it, literally!

I started out writing this as a single blog post to share with my readers, but once I had covered all of the information that a student REALLY needs to graduate college debt free I had an 11 chapter book!

This book is broken into easy to digest sections starting with WHY a person should attend college, HOW financial aid works, finding the RIGHT college, budgeting, and much more.

“I want every one of you to have the opportunity to leave your college of choice with the ability to choose any job that speaks to your heart because working for a cause is far greater than working for a paycheck.”

1 Comment

I also graduated college debt free. Dual enrollment allows students as young as in 7th grade to take college classes for free and receive dual credit. As a result, I graduated high school college at 16 years old. I love that you wrote a book about how you graduated debt free.